Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Working With Odoo - Sample Chapter
Working With Odoo - Sample Chapter
ee
$ 54.99 US
34.99 UK
P U B L I S H I N G
pl
C o m m u n i t y
D i s t i l l e d
E x p e r i e n c e
Greg Moss
This book is perfect for people who have never used Odoo
and for those who would like to learn about more advanced
concepts of Odoo. In order to get the most out of this
book, you should be comfortable with understanding basic
business concepts such as sales, purchasing, inventory
management, and basic accounting.
Sa
m
Greg Moss
Preface
Working with Odoo provides a comprehensive walk-through for installing,
configuring, and implementing Odoo in real-world business environments. This
book will help you to understand the value of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
systems and the best practices and approaches for getting a system up and running
in your organization. For those who are new to ERP systems, this book will serve as
an introduction so that you will be better prepared to understand more advanced
ERP concepts. If you are already experienced in ERP systems, this book will give you
an overview of the primary applications for Odoo and how those applications can be
used in a real business environment.
Odoo is a very feature-filled business application framework with literally hundreds
of applications and modules available. Silkworm, Inc. is a highly respected custom
apparel, promotional products, and graphic design company in the Midwest, United
States. Silkworm has been serving its customers, team members, and community
for more than 30 years. Silkworm has been kind enough to allow us to include
some basic aspects of their business processes as a set of real-world examples on
implementing Odoo into a manufacturing operation. While the examples in this
book are extremely simplified, using real-life examples will assist in understanding
how to utilize Odoo to solve real-world business problems.
Although Silkworm is actively implementing Odoo, Silkworm, Inc. does not
directly endorse or recommend Odoo for any specific business solution. Every
company must carry out their own research to determine if Odoo is a good fit
for their operation.
We have done our best in this book to cover the most essential features of the Odoo
applications that you are most likely to use in your business. Unfortunately, there are
just not enough pages to cover more advanced topics. In Appendix, Locating Additional
Odoo Resources, we have included additional resources that you can look to for more
advanced subjects.
Preface
After the book is released, be sure to check for online updates in which we can cover
more advanced subjects.
Also, Packt Publishing offers other Odoo books that cover more advanced
Odoo topics.
Now, let's discuss in some detail what each chapter will cover:
Chapter 1, Setting Up Odoo, gets you started right away by showing you how to
use Odoo online without any setup. Just open your browser and you are ready to
get going. Next, the chapter goes on to cover the different installation types and
prerequisites for both Windows and Ubuntu. Instructions are provided to find the
right download package and set up Odoo on your own server. The chapter then goes
into the basics of configuring Odoo. At the end of the chapter is a useful collection of
tips on how to troubleshoot your Odoo installation.
Chapter 2, Installing Your First Application, begins by introducing you to the real-world
case study that will be used as an example throughout the book. We continue by
showing you how to create the company database and configure the basic company
settings required to quickly get your first Odoo system up and running. The first
module, Sales Management, will be installed, and we will walk through the steps to
enter a customer and a product. The chapter concludes by entering a sales order and
completing the sale and producing an invoice.
Chapter 3, Exploring Customer Relationship Management in Odoo, starts with a basic
overview of CRM systems and their importance in today's modern business
environment. After we cover the installation of the CRM application, a lead is entered
for our sample company. We will demonstrate the CRM workflow by turning the lead
into a customer. Next, a quote is generated for our newly acquired customer, and a
call is scheduled for follow-up by using Odoo's meeting functionality. We also cover
the OpenChatter feature that is used throughout Odoo to provide notes and messages
associated with Odoo documents.
Preface
Chapter 4, Purchasing with Odoo, shows us how to install the purchasing application,
set up suppliers, and begin purchasing and receiving products in Odoo. Later in the
chapter, you learn how to tie purchasing into sales orders to automatically generate
draft purchase orders based on your business requirements.
Chapter 5, Making Goods with Manufacturing Resource Planning, begins to explore some
of the primary functionalities of ERP systems for manufacturing operations. You
will learn how to set up your manufacturing orders and define the bill of materials
to specify the raw materials that will go into your final products. Manufacturing
operations can then be extended with routing and work centers to give you more
control over tracking time and resources.
Chapter 6, Configuring Accounting Finance, discusses the Accounts Receivable and
Accounts Payable basic functions. Next, we will introduce the Chart of Accounts
and discover how to set up fiscal periods. This chapter will also include the basic
accounting reports and how to close a period.
Chapter 7, Administering an Odoo Installation, begins by discussing the overall
considerations for implementing Odoo into a business environment. This includes
advice on server configurations, documenting your processes, and the importance of
considering business continuity. We then go into how to manage users, groups, and
set up security roles to manage access to various applications within Odoo. Finally, we
look at how to implement Internationalization for multiple languages and currencies.
Chapter 8, Implementing the Human Resources Application, begins by installing the basic
HR applications and goes over the employee directory. Other topics in the chapter
will include timesheets, the recruitment process, and leave management. At the end
of the chapter, we will look at how to create online interviews and hire employees
using the tools in Odoo.
Chapter 9, Understanding Project Management, covers the features of the Project
Management application in Odoo. We will create a project, see how to enter tasks
and tie a project to a specific customer. Next, team members are assigned to the
project, and we configure task stages. We then will go over real-world examples of
using the Project Management application to more easily manage complex orders
and customer needs. Finally, we see how Project Management can be used along
with analytic accounting to provide better reporting.
Chapter 10, Creating Advanced Searches and Dashboards, demonstrates how to utilize the
advanced search features and configure custom dashboards in Odoo. By the end
of the chapter, you will be able to create and save custom searches to reuse later,
as well as add search results to dashboards.
Preface
Chapter 11, Building a Website with Odoo, is dedicated to exploring Odoo's powerful
new website building platform. At the beginning of the chapter, we will look at what
a CMS (Content Management System) is and some of the other popular website
building platforms. We follow along with Odoo's website building tutorial and then
look at the features that can be used to promote your website right from within Odoo.
Chapter 12, Implementing E-Commerce with Odoo, builds on the previous chapter by
adding a fully functioning online shopping cart to the website. We see how to publish
products to the website and the various options to change their appearance. Midway
through the chapter, we cover product variants that add additional flexibility to how
you manage your products within Odoo. Finally, we conclude by examining how to
set up a payment processor to take payment online through PayPal.
Chapter 13, Customizing Odoo for Your Business, explains how to enter the developer
mode for making a variety of custom changes to Odoo. We will walk through the
steps to add fields to the sales order form and then include the fields in tree views
for sorting and reporting. From here, we will get into advanced configuration topics
to better customize Odoo for your specific business requirements.
Chapter 14, Modifying Documents and Reports, goes over the basic reporting mechanisms
available in Odoo and weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of the various
options. We learn how to use the powerful qWeb template language to modify the
default Odoo sales order form.
Chapter 15, Understanding Workflows, introduces the workflow editor and analyzes the
basic sales order workflow. Using our case study example, the workflow is modified
to improve the flow of information through the business. By the end of the chapter,
you should have a basic understanding of modifying workflows to better handle
unique business processes.
Chapter 16, Discovering Custom Odoo Modules, introduces the process of developing
custom solutions in Odoo. We build on what we learned in Chapter 13, Customizing
Odoo for Your Business and create a module that will persist our custom field and
views within our module. Next, we build on the workflow modifications we made
in the previous chapter and upgrade our module to approve art designs for our
real-world example.
Appendix, Locating Additional Odoo Resources, covers a list of resources that can extend
your knowledge in supporting an Odoo installation.
Setting Up Odoo
Odoo is a powerful set of open source business applications built on the OpenObject
framework. When you first install Odoo, the only functionality you will have is
limited messaging options between users. From there, Odoo allows you to install
the modules you need as you need them. This flexibility makes Odoo much more
accessible than many business software solutions.
In this chapter, we will get started working with Odoo by covering the installation
and the basics of setting up an Odoo database.
The topics we will cover include:
[1]
Setting Up Odoo
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Safari
Macintosh users will need to make sure they are running
Mac OS X or above. Users running older Macintosh systems
are currently having difficulties running Odoo version 7.
Also, in my experience, Google Chrome tends to offer the
best experience in working with Odoo. Firefox is also often
recommended by others in the Odoo community.
[2]
Chapter 1
[3]
Setting Up Odoo
Clicking on the appropriate button for the application immediately begins installing
your own unique Odoo instance.
For our example, let's go ahead and install the CRM application by clicking on the
Install CRM button:
[4]
Chapter 1
Be patient as it can take thirty seconds or longer for the servers to build the database
and bring up the starting page. When the installation is complete, Odoo automatically
signs you in so you can begin trying out the software. The goal of this approach is to
get users to directly start using the software right away and avoid having to fill out
lengthy forms or create logins and passwords to begin using the software. It really is
just one click and you have your own version of Odoo to play with.
In the preceding screenshot, you can see the screen that appears after installing the
CRM application. With it, you can manage your customers, leads, and opportunities.
We will discuss the CRM application in detail in Chapter 3, Exploring Customer
Relationship Management in Odoo.
Take a few minutes to look around in Odoo to get familiar with the interface. You
don't have to worry about breaking anything or doing anything wrong. If you run
into problems or get confused, just close your web browser and try again.
This is a demonstration and will only last for one four-hour
session. If you close your browser, you will lose your setup
and have to start over again.
[5]
Setting Up Odoo
Clicking on the message will take you to the typical standard signup form to provide
your name, e-mail, and other information to register your trial version of Odoo:
[6]
Chapter 1
After you have filled out the form and clicked on Start using, the Odoo application
will once again reload. Now, you will see in the top-right-hand corner that you are
logged in under the name you provided in the signup form. Also, you will see at the
top, a countdown of how many days are remaining in your trial version.
Subscribing to Odoo
For 15 days, you can use Odoo for free without subscribing. Once your 15 days run
out, you must subscribe to Odoo in order to keep using their enterprise cloud-hosted
version of the software. The first two users of Odoo are free indefinitely.
This means you can sign up and continue using Odoo with just two users without
having to pay any monthly fees. For additional users, the current pricing is $25 per
month, per user at the time of writing. Each application that you use also will incur
a monthly cost depending upon the specific application.
The following screenshot is the Odoo Online Pricing calculator in July of 2015:
online.
[7]
Setting Up Odoo
Chapter 1
PostgreSQL runs on every major operating system. For most Odoo installations,
Ubuntu is the operating system of choice. However, PostgreSQL will also run quite
well under other versions of Linux, Microsoft Windows, and even Mac OS X.
You can learn more about PostgreSQL at http://www.postgresql.org/.
Designing models
The model is essentially the data that makes up your Odoo installation, which is
stored in the PostgreSQL database. Odoo is unique, in that, database structures are
typically defined by the Odoo modules at the time they are installed. The Odoo
framework takes the model definitions and automatically creates the necessary table
structures inside the PostgreSQL database. Furthermore, a web interface in Odoo
allows administrators to easily extend the Odoo data model in a variety of ways
without having to modify the Odoo source code.
Rendering views
Each view in Odoo is defined in XML documents. The Odoo framework is responsible
for rendering these view files in a web browser. Alternative views can be built to
render Odoo functionality upon other platforms such as mobile devices.
[9]
Setting Up Odoo
Authoring controllers
The controller component of the architecture is where the business logic and
workflow rules of the Odoo application are applied. The controller components
in Odoo are written in Python code and stored as objects in Odoo modules.
[ 10 ]
Chapter 1
Introducing Ubuntu
While Microsoft Windows does not really need an introduction, it is probably worth
giving a brief introduction to Ubuntu. In short, Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOON-too)
is a very popular open source operating system based on the Linux kernel. It has
enjoyed increasing popularity because it is easy to install and very stable. Ubuntu can
be installed either as a server operating system without a graphical interface or as a
desktop operating system with a graphical interface that closely resembles Windows.
You can learn more about the Ubuntu operating system and why it is so popular at
http://www.ubuntu.com/.
Ubuntu is the primary target platform: While Odoo is released for Windows
and still well-supported, the Ubuntu installation continues to be favored.
The development team of Odoo works primarily with Ubuntu for bug
fixes and platform releases. It can be expected that, for the most part, Odoo
development will be optimized around Ubuntu, not Windows or Mac.
Ubuntu has strong community support for Odoo: The fact is that a
vast majority of the production installations of Odoo are running under
Ubuntu. When you run into trouble or management issues with your Odoo
installation, you may find it easier to get assistance if you are running an
Ubuntu installation.
[ 11 ]
Setting Up Odoo
Upgrading Odoo
The goal of the Odoo development team is to release two stable version upgrades
each year. Odoo further labels some stable versions as Long Term Support (LTS)
versions. These releases are supported by Odoo for those that have an Odoo
Enterprise support contract. For any production environment, it is smart to choose
an LTS version. Most importantly, installing an LTS release of Odoo will make bug
fixes and patches much easier to implement.
At the time of writing this, the most recent stable
LTS version is version 8.0.
[ 12 ]
Chapter 1
The preceding screenshot is the Odoo Nightly builds page that is the jumping off
point for downloading the source files for installation.
[ 13 ]
Setting Up Odoo
The examples and case studies in this book use Odoo 8.0. This means you should
select the 8.0 LTS (stable) version of Odoo to download. You can navigate directly to
the 8.0 Odoo downloads here http://nightly.odoo.com/8.0/nightly/.
It is entirely possible that Odoo will change the URL as new versions
are released. To best follow the examples in this book, download an
8.x installation of Odoo.
Windows installations use the EXE packages. Click on the exe directory to get the list
of downloads that are available.
Naturally, the specific download packages are going to change on a nightly basis.
[ 14 ]
Chapter 1
The latest version of the stable LTS release will contain the most current Odoo
built with bug fixes included and will appear at the bottom of the list. By the
way, the upload dates you'll see are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and,
therefore, might be many hours ahead of your time zone, especially if you live
in the Western Hemisphere.
[ 15 ]
Setting Up Odoo
The Odoo packages will be first downloaded and then installed. This is an all-in-one
installation and should set up all the necessary packages, PostgreSQL, and library
dependencies required to run Odoo.
Take note that the installation itself still uses openerp, instead of
the new odoo brand name.
Chapter 1
[ 17 ]
Setting Up Odoo
Chapter 1
For example, Port=8059 will change the default port for the web client to port 8059.
Also, be careful while starting up your Odoo server from the command line without
specifying an alternative password or the path to the configuration file. If you do,
you leave the instance open with the default password.
[ 19 ]
Setting Up Odoo
Summary
In this chapter, we saw how easy it was to get started using Odoo online. We
discussed how to set up a trial company and the basics of creating a database
and installing your first module. If you choose not to use the online services,
you likely found the topics on installing Odoo on Windows or Ubuntu helpful.
Finally, we discussed various methods of troubleshooting and configuring Odoo.
In the next chapter, we will begin to jump into our first real business applications
in Odoo. You will get introduced to our real world case study and set up the basic
configuration of the company. We will walk you through setting up your first
product and, finally, creating and printing your first sales order.
[ 20 ]
www.PacktPub.com
Stay Connected: